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Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#331

Post by bogomipz »

hbosch wrote: post #203
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> importing ethnicities means importing their ethnic conflicts too, always Is there evidence for this? Couldn't null be valid: those choosing to emigrate are most likely to be willing or wanting to leave that nonsense behind? Caste has no place in America. It's antithetical to our founding values. Plenty of Indians emigrate while leaving their caste identity, and any will to act on it, behind. There may remain implic…

>Caste has no place in America. It's antithetical to our founding values. "Caste" as being your ring in the social hierarchy is present in almost any culture or civilization, and prejudiced treatment of people in either higher or lower social rings is definitely (in my opinion) a part of American culture. This country definitely offers special treatment and privilege to those in higher "castes"... Hell, even just hav…

Indeed and in 19th century New England there was actually a term "Boston Brahmin." It was also based on surname and social standing. The term is still used, often in articles discussing people from white well-to-do, old money New England families.

See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Brahmin

and

https://www.bostonmagazine.com/2006/05/15/the-new-brahmins/

and

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2004/03/what-s-a-boston-...

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#332

Post by [deleted] »

jmyeet wrote: post #154

There's a lot of bias in the tech industry, not just caste. if your company is sufficiently large it will have various HR policies on this and in my experience they will enumerate the kinds of discrimination they don't tolerate. Here's an exercise for you: go through the list of US protected classes [1] and see which ones are explicitly stated and which ones aren't. It's actually enlightening. For example, I don't th…

[deleted]

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#333

Post by charia »

Layke1123 wrote: post #304
thwjerjl23432 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Is this a veiled criticism of Hinduism?

I think it's more mocking the oversimplification of complex problems.

That though caste discrimination causes significant harm and problems in the Indian and Indian diaspora communities, not every, "bad thing", stem from caste discrimination in specific.

The idea that sexism and other terrible things can be prevelant issues that need to be addressed better but they are not necessarily related to caste.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#334

Post by dandare »

After a quick google search I can see some very controversial comments by Thenmozhi Soundararajan.

Hopefully the world is changing and demonising ones race, even if that race is white or Hindu, will soon be neither celebrated nor even acceptable.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#335

Post by istjohn »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #114
car_analogy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you demand this strict moderation and sensitivity also when it's white people that are being accused of discrimination?

Not the OP, but I think the same principle applies. Whenever you accuse an entire race of something (as opposed to isolating your criticism to individuals or even systems), you’re engaging in racism, and this is unfortunately common in DEI trainings and among “race activists”. I don’t think strict moderation is necessary in the general case (especially since a lot of the most credentialed people who would moderate ar…

After Trump's nativist rhetoric, a steady stream of police brutality against black men like George Floyd making national news, and a resurgence of white nationalist terrorism like the recent shooting in Buffalo, I agree we've been set back decades. But the blame doesn't lie with overzealous woke activists. Woke activists might make some white people more uncomfortable than tiki torch-wielding Caucasians chanting "Jews will not replace us" or Dylann Roof shooting up a black church, but that doesn't make them comparable in any way.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#336

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

alex_smart wrote: post #296
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You really think it's appropriate for some white American manager to lecture his Indian subordinates after spending a few hours in training? Yes. Ethnic discrimination is absolutely unacceptable in any American workplace, full stop. There is no room for cultural relativism here. To imply otherwise (e.g. “it would be inappropriate for a non-Indian manager to tell off their subordinate for being caste-ist”) is itself…

How exactly would you determine that a manager is acting against an employee under them due to an internal caste bias and not due to lack of performance or insubordination (or whatever other valid grounds there are for acting against an employee)?

There's no silver bullet. It's equally hard to determine when a manager is acting against subordinates because of petty grudges, or when a manager is acting against subordinates because they're bad at effectively telling subordinates what they want. I think that's kinda the job you sign up for when you choose to join higher-level management.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#337

Post by [deleted] »

yalogin wrote: post #118

The talk should have allowed to go through. The post I think said it right, people wanted to shut it down and the only way to do it is to discredit the speaker because they know there is truth to the arguments. However we should step back and think about how important it in the American context. What purpose is that talk going to serve? I don’t know if it does anything other than satisfying esoteric learning needs of…

[deleted]

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#338

Post by naravara »

throwntoday wrote: post #294
notacoward wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> failure to differentiate Israel (the state and government) with Judaism (the religion) with Jew/Hebrew (the ethnicity) That has not been my experience. AFAICT even people who are extremely careful and specific about criticizing the state of Israel - even more specifically the IDF or a political party within Israel responsible for a particular act - still get tarred with the "anti-Semitic" brush. Jewish people have…

>AFAICT even people who are extremely careful and specific about criticizing the state of Israel - even more specifically the IDF or a political party within Israel responsible for a particular act - still get tarred with the "anti-Semitic" brush This is clearly a defense tactic used to avoid criticism and I see it employed heavily by apologist. Criticism in general should be embraced, as nothing is perfect and we ca…

> Criticism in general should be embraced, as nothing is perfect and we can always improve.

Honestly it depends on how that criticism is framed and who it's being directed towards. It reads differently if the criticism framed as "I care about you and want you to do better" versus "I dislike you and have developed a narrative that justifies mistreating you." It also matters whether the criticism is directed as feedback (e.g. "When you do X it makes me feel Y and I think doing Z would be better") vs. directed towards a third party to intervene in a prosecutorial way.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#339

Post by vorpalhex »

causi wrote: post #106
naravara wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe, Google, instead of just giving up you should be asking why a speaker on Dalit rights and inclusion is causing "division and rancor" in your community? Or is that also a difficult conversation you'd rather not have? The same reason speakers on Palestinian rights often can. While they may be on the right side of the issue, it's also very easy for closed discussion spaces to rapidly devolve into pretty viciousl…

a specific point of view to talk about it while delegitimizing all other perspectives as inherently beneath consideration it's not gonna go well Why do we owe this degree of sensitivity to some types of bigot but not others? Why don't we need to be careful about "delegitimizing" the beliefs of people who think black people are inherently inferior or gay people are inherently immoral? The realpolitik answer is that Go…

In the same way that in the 90s you could not have immediately started having every major company start celebrating gay pride.

Cultural change takes time.

When you still have a practice occurring among over a billion people you can't simply throw it out and declare everyone doing it a bigot. You have to transition in steps and get buy in.

Put another way, you wouldn't march single handedly into Saudi Arabia and tell them Islamic law is dumb and they are dumb for following it.

Re: Google cancelled a talk on caste bias

#340

Post by hef19898 »

alex_smart wrote: post #296
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You really think it's appropriate for some white American manager to lecture his Indian subordinates after spending a few hours in training? Yes. Ethnic discrimination is absolutely unacceptable in any American workplace, full stop. There is no room for cultural relativism here. To imply otherwise (e.g. “it would be inappropriate for a non-Indian manager to tell off their subordinate for being caste-ist”) is itself…

How exactly would you determine that a manager is acting against an employee under them due to an internal caste bias and not due to lack of performance or insubordination (or whatever other valid grounds there are for acting against an employee)?

If a manager is acting against an emoloyee, someone should ask very pointed questions why. If caste might be at play, yes, saidanager ahould get a very stern talk from his superiors and HR explaining how this behaviour is unacceptable.
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